What Starting Over Actually Looks Like

I met “Nikki” at a conference and was blown away by the creativity she’s had in reinventing her career. She spent twelve years in law enforcement but when she made detective (the goal she’d worked toward her entire career) she walked away from it almost immediately after. What followed was a smoothie shop, five months of not knowing what came next, two jobs she found through relationships rather than resumes, a company merger, and eventually what she’s doing now…. in the fresh produce industry. Seemingly random, but when you listen to the episode, you’ll see that it’s not.

Nikki’s story is about what it looks like to keep moving forward when you have have no idea where forward is. I hope you’ll be as inspired by her as I am.

Nikki didn’t wake up one day and decide to leave. She watched a news broadcast from four states away, saw colleagues she knew on live television, and thought this will blow over by Tuesday. It didn’t. The unrest went on for months, and something in her started quietly shifting. Most of us don’t leave because of one dramatic moment. We leave because of a slow accumulation of moments we kept explaining away.

Making detective was everything. Twelve years of working toward it. And almost immediately after she got there, she walked away. Not because it wasn’t what she thought it would be — she told me it’s still her dream job. But because staying would have cost her something she wasn’t willing to give up. Getting clear on what you’re actually optimizing for changes every decision that comes after it.

After the smoothie shop closed, Nikki spent five months applying to jobs, telling almost no one, and feeling like a failure. She wasn’t. She was in a lull — flat, uncertain, but still moving. She told me the difference between that period and going backwards is something she only understood in hindsight. If you’re in the lull right now, I want you to hear that.

She kept saying if someone would just give me ten minutes to hear my story. Nobody found her through a cold application. A woman overheard something she said in passing and reached out days later. A close friend had a different angle on a conversation Nikki thought was just venting. The opportunities came when she let people actually know what was going on. Quiet vulnerability is a career strategy.

Here’s what I keep thinking about. Nikki did everything in the right order. She was patient, she was proud of her work at every step, she never felt like she was starting over even when it looked that way from the outside. And she told me she’s never regretted leaving — not once. But she’d still tell you today that detective is her dream job.

That’s not a contradiction. That’s just what it looks like to build a life that fits, even when it costs you something real.

If that resonates, I’d love to hear from you. Comment below, or if you want to share your story and be considered for a future episode, submit here.